Proof that the world as we know it is hurtling ever faster towards oblivion?

An admission of the fact that, asked to descibe something which is vanilla-flavoured, many people would use the word ‘vanilla-y’ , which is difficult to say, not really a word and, in some accents at least, pronounced ‘vanillary’ anyway?

A spelling error.

I ask because M&S have recently launched a new range of cakes, one of which is a triple layer white chocolate and raspberry cake made up of three layers of ‘moist vanillary sponge’ (poor quality photo below)

Oh of course, you don’t have a linking-r up there, do you? So you wouldn’t say, as a bizarre example: “I put my finger ro na norange or ra napple,’ would you? And I suppose you’d simply have The Law of Scotland, rather than our Law rof England. So ‘vanillary’ might not make much sense to rhotic speakers, I’m guessing. Right?

Mr D: No, Scots accents don’t have ‘intrusive’ r (‘linking’ sounds less dismissive. Is my terminology out-of-date?) generally speaking, although I think your first example would be perfectly possible. The second one wouldn’t – Scotland doesn’t recognise that famous legal female Laura Norder! ‘Vanillary’ interested me because it seemed to be an attempt to represent spoken English in a relatively formal context.